Early in April the paradise flycatchers (Terpsiphone paradisi) arrive. The hen is a chestnut bird with a black head and crest and a white breast; she looks something like a bulbul. The cock when quite young is similarly attired. At his first autumnal moult, that is to say when he is about fifteen months old, his two middle tail feathers outgrow the rest by twelve or thirteen inches. In his third year white feathers begin to appear among the chestnut ones, and after his third autumnal moult he emerges as a magnificent white bird with a metallic black head and crest. His elongated tail feathers now look like white satin streamers. He retains this livery for the remainder of his life, and looks so magnificent in it as to merit well his name. It is impossible to mistake the paradise flycatcher. There is no other bird like it. It is a denizen of orchards and shady groves and may always be seen during the hot weather in the beautiful wood on the bank of the Ravi between the bridge of boats and the railway. A cock paradise flycatcher, in the full glory of his white plumage, as he flits like a sprite through the leafy glade, is a sight never to be forgotten. The movements of his long tail feathers as he pursues his course are as graceful as those of the folds of the gossamer garments of a skilled serpentine dancer.
The nest is a deep cup, in shape like an inverted cone, plastered exteriorly with cobweb and white cocoons. It is almost invariably placed in a fork near the end of one of the lower branches of a tree. Both cock and hen take part in nest building and incubation. As the cock sits his long white tail feathers hang downover the side of the nest and render him very conspicuous. The most expeditious way of finding a paradise flycatcher’s nest is to look out for a sitting cock. The alarm note of this species is a sharp harshTschit, but the cock is also able to warble a very sweet song.
The Indian oriole (Oriolus kundoo) is another gorgeous summer visitor to the Punjab. The cock is arrayed in rich golden yellow. His bill is pink and he has a black patch on each side of his head, there is also some black in his wings and tail. The hen is clad in greenish yellow and is neither so showy nor so handsome. The oriole is commonly called the mango bird by Europeans in India. I have never been able to discover whether the bird is so named because the cock is not unlike a ripe mango in colour, or because orioles are to be found in almost every mango tope.Oriolus kundoois a bird of many notes. Of these the most pleasing is a mellowlorio, lorio. Another note very frequently heard is a loud but not unmusicaltew. The alarm note of the species is a plaintive cry, not easy to describe. It is uttered whenever a human being approaches the nest. The hen alone incubates, but she is not often seen upon the nest, for she leaves it at the first sound of a human footfall.
The nest of the oriole is a wonderful structure. It is a cradle slung on to a stout forked branch. The bird tears with its beak strips of the soft bark from the mulberry tree. An end of the strip is wound round one limb of the fork, then the other end is passed under the nest and wound round the other limb of the supporting bough. If the strip be long enough it is againpassed under the nest. This framework supports the nest proper, which is a hemispherical cup composed of fine roots and dried grass. The minimum of material is used in construction, with the result that the eggs lying in the nest are sometimes visible from below. He who would find orioles’ nests should repair in June to the canal bank or to the above-mentioned wood.
Every oriole’s nest that I have seen in Lahore has been placed near a king-crow’s nest. It is, I think, for the sake of protection that the oriole builds near the king-crow. This latter is so pugnacious that most predaceous birds avoid the tree in which its nest is situated.
Among the summer visitors to the Punjab is a dove known asOenopopelia tranquebarica. Those who find this name rather a mouthful are at liberty to call the bird the red turtle-dove. This species is of interest on account of the large amount of sexual dimorphism which it displays. The head and neck of the cock are ashy grey, his upper back and wings are the peculiar red of a faded port-wine stain, the lower back is grey, the middle tail feathers are brown and the other ones white. There is a black collar round his neck. The hen is a uniform greyish brown, her only adornment being a black collar similar to that of the cock.
As a chapter of this work is devoted exclusively to the red turtle-dove, nothing more need be said of it in this place, save that its note is not the orthodox coo, it is a peculiar low grunt, and gives one the impression that the bird has caught cold.
One summer visitor remains to be described, but heneed not detain us long, for, save his respectability, he has nothing in particular to commend him. I allude to the yellow-throated sparrow (Gymnorhis flavicollis). This bird probably sometimes passes for a hen house sparrow; close inspection, however, reveals a yellow patch on the throat. According to Jerdon this creature has much the same manners and habits as the common sparrow. This I consider libellous. The yellow-throated sparrow is a bird of retiring disposition and I have never heard of one forcing its way into asahib’sbungalow. It nestles in a hole in a tree. Having lined the ready-made cavity with dry grass and feathers, it lays four eggs which are thickly blotched all over with sepia, chocolate brown, or purple. A pair of these birds lives in the octagonal aviary at the Lahore Zoo.
The paddy bird has as many aliases as a professional criminal of twenty years’ standing. I do not refer to his scientific names. Of course he has a number of these. Every bird has. A person who desires violent exercise for the memory cannot do better than try to keep pace with the kaleidoscopic changes which Indian ornithological terminology undergoes. The paddy bird is now known asArdeola grayii, but I do not guarantee that he will be so called next month. When I assert that the paddy bird is a creature of many aliases, I mean that he has a number of popular names. He is sometimes known as the pond heron, because no piece of water larger than a puddle is too small to serve as a fishing ground for him. His partiality to flooded rice fields has given rise to the name by which he most commonly goes. He is frequently dubbed the blind heron, especially by natives. The Tamils call him the blind idiot. Needless to say the bird is not blind, its confiding disposition is responsible for the adjective. It might be blind for all the notice it takes of surrounding objects as it stands at the water’s edge, huddled up like a decrepit old man.
Before proceeding further, let me, for the benefit of those who are unacquainted with the avifauna of India, describe the bird. It is much smaller than the common heron, being about the size of a curlew. The head, neck, and the whole of the upper plumage are greenish brown, each feather having a darker shaft stripe. The under parts are white, as are the larger wing feathers, but these latter are so arranged as to be altogether invisible when the wings are closed, so that the bird, when it flies, seems suddenly to produce from nowhere a pair of beautiful white pinions and sail away on them. Before it has flown far it usually performs the vanishing trick. This, like most effective conjuring tricks, is very easy to perform when one knows how to do it. The bird merely folds its wings, then the dark coverts alone are visible. These are of the same hue as the damp sand or mud on which the paddy bird spends a considerable portion of the day. The dingy hues of the paddy bird are the outcome of its habits; it is ashikarithat stalks its prey or lies in wait for it. If it were as showy as the cattle egret its intended victims would “see it coming” and mock at it. Hence the necessity for its workaday garb.
The paddy bird is a very sluggish creature; it comes of a lazy family. There is not a single member of the heron tribe that does sufficient work to disqualify it for membership of the most particular trade union.
Most herons, however, do stalk their prey, which is more than the paddy bird usually does. One may sometimes see him progressing through shallow water at the rate of six inches a minute; but more commonlyhe stands in shallow water as motionless as a stuffed bird, with his head almost buried in his shoulders, looking as though he were highly disgusted with things in general. As a matter of fact he is thoroughly enjoying himself. His ugly eye is fixed upon some luckless frog in the water. The moment this comes within striking distance the pond heron will shoot out his long neck, seize the frog and swallow it whole. One cannot but feel sorry for the frog as it finds itself being hustled down the heron’s throat. It probably mistook the motionless creature for a rock and, even had it not made this mistake, it could not be expected to know that the bird had buried in its shoulders a patent telescopic neck. After the amphibian is safely lodgedin ventro, the paddy bird resumes his strategic position at the water’s edge and maintains it for hours.
One day when I have nothing else to do I mean to mark down a paddy bird in its roosting tree, follow it to its fishing ground and picnic there all day and watch its behaviour. I shall then write an essay entitledA Leaf from the Diary of a Lazy Bird.
I imagine that the daily entry will read somewhat as follows:—
The above is not a statement of actual fact. Like many scientific productions it is based on imagination and not observation. I have not yet devoted a whole day to the paddy bird. I have, however, spent an hour at a pond heron’s dormitory and record in the next chapter what I saw there.
At the nesting season the paddy birds awake from their habitual lethargy. Towards the end of June they begin to make a collection of sticks and pile these together on a forked branch high up in some tree. When the pile has reached a magnitude sufficient to support four or five eggs the paddy bird flatters itself that it has built a fine nest and forthwith proceeds to stock it with eggs. This species usually nests in colonies, sometimes in company with night herons (Nycticorax griseus), and occasionally with crows.Seen from below the nursery looks rather like an old crow’s nest. The eggs are a beautiful pale green. They are most jealously watched by the parents; one or other always remaining on guard, and, every now and then, gurgling with delight.
The youngsters hatch out in a comparatively advanced condition. A baby pond heron about a week old is a most amusing object. It has a long, narrow, pinkish beak, quite unlike the broad triangle that does duty for a mouth in passerine birds. Its neck is disproportionately long, while its green legs are many sizes too big for it. Downy feathers are scattered irregularly over the body, and add to the absurdity of its appearance. The eye is bright yellow and gives its possessor a very knowing look.
Most birds when they have young work like slaves to procure sufficient food for them. Not so the paddy bird. He knows a trick worth two of that. He is a past master in the art of loafing. He does not feed his offspring on tiny insects, dozens of which are required to make a decent meal; he forces whole frogs down the elastic gullet of the nestling. Now the most ravenous and greedy young bird cannot negotiate very many frogs per diem; hence the feeding of their young is not a great tax upon paddy birds.
The paddy bird (Ardeola grayii) is at all times and all seasons as solemn as the proverbial judge; hence at bedtime, when all other birds are hilarious and excited, he is comparatively sedate.
Paddy birds, in common with the great majority of the feathered kind, roost in company. At sunrise, the company separates. Each goes his own way to his favourite river, paddy-field, tank, pond or puddle, as the case may be, and spends the day in morose solitude. At sunset he rejoins his fellow pond herons.
Growing out of the water in a small tank near the railway station at Fyzabad are three trees, one of which is quite small, while the other two are about the size of well-grown apple trees. This description is perhaps as vague as saying of an object that it is as big as a piece of chalk. I am sorry. I cannot help it. I know of no accurate method of judging the size of a tree that is surrounded by dirty, slimy water. On one of these trees, like unto an apple tree, over fifty paddy birds spend the night.
One might have thought that this was a very fair load for an average tree. This, however, is not theopinion of the feathered folk. Some 300 or 400 mynas also utilise this tree as a dormitory. The mynas occupy the higher branches, and the paddy birds the lower ones.
As every one knows, the roosting place of a company of mynas is a perfect pandemonium. For thirty or forty minutes before going to sleep each individual bird shouts at every other individual with truly splendid energy. If man could but devise some means of harnessing this energy, every station in India might be lighted with electric light at a very small cost. As things are, all this energy is dissipated in the form of sound, with the result that the noise made by 300 starlings can be heard at a distance of half a mile.
One might reasonably suppose that a quiet, sedate bird likeArdeola grayiiwould be greatly disgusted at the din that emanates from the throats of mynas at bedtime, and would refrain from selecting as his dormitory a tree that literally quivers with the shoutings of mynas. It is, however, not so. Birds rarely do what one would expect. I know hundreds of ideal sites for birds’ nests that are never utilised.Per contra, I have met with numbers of nests situated in the most uncomfortable and evil-smelling places. Paddy birds obviously do not suffer from nerves.
For about fifteen minutes before and fifteen minutes after sunset the tree in which all these birds roost presents an animated appearance. One or two paddy birds are the first to arrive, and they settle on one or other of the lower branches which almost touch thewater. Nearly all birds, on approaching the tree in which they roost, literally throw themselves into the foliage, they plunge into it at headlong speed. Needless to say, the paddy bird does nothing so reckless as this; nevertheless, when approaching the tree in which he intends to spend the night he travels faster than at any other time, except, of course, when he is being chased by a falcon. The advance-guard of the mynas arrives very shortly after the firstbagla. The mynas belong to two species—the common and the bank mynas (Acridotheres tristisandA. ginginianus). They come in squads of twenty or thirty. The various squads arrive in rapid succession. Then the uproar begins and continues to swell in volume as the numbers in the tree increase.
The paddy birds come in ones and twos, and, as stated, invariably alight on one of the lower branches. They usually select a branch so thin that it would be impossible for so large a bird to obtain a foothold on it did not the claws of that bird grip like a vice; and even so it is not without much flapping of their white wings that the pond herons manage to reach a state of equilibrium.
If, when a paddy bird has succeeded in steadying itself on a slender branch two feet or so above the level of the water, another feckless fellow elects to alight on the selfsame branch, there follows trouble compared to which the Turco-Italian War is, as the babu says, a mere storm in a teapot; both birds seem in danger of taking a bath. On such occasions, the bird first on the tree greets the new-comer with gurglesof protest, there is much flapping of white wings, and eventually one or both the birds have to leave the branch.
But it is not until the tree is filled with birds that the real fun begins. When about forty paddy birds are squatting on the lower branches and over 300 mynas on the upper ones, it will be well understood that there is not much accommodation available for new arrivals. When a belated myna appears on the scene and plunges into the midst of his brother starlings, he is greeted with such a torrent of abuse that, although, in the gathering gloom, one cannot see what is going on amid the foliage, one feels convinced that the abuse is backed up by assault and battery. If, on the other hand, the luckless myna pitches into the tree at a lower elevation, he is liable to find himself transfixed by the stiletto-like beak of the nearest paddy bird, the savage thrust being accompanied by a lugubrious croak which seems to be the only note of the paddy bird. Nine out of ten mynas prefer incurring the wrath of their own kind to bringing down upon themselves the less noisy but more formidable anger of the pond heron.
If the mynas are packed like sardines in a box, the paddy birds lower down are not much more comfortable. It is true that the paddy birds are not squeezed together after the manner of the mynas, for the simple reason that if more than two of them attempted to squat on any but the stoutest of the branches they would all find themselves immersed in the slimy, unsavoury water beneath. The discomfort of thepaddy birds is of another kind. Each one is balancing himself on an insecure perch and lives in momentary terror of being displaced by the advent of some otherbagla. Hence, when the tree contains about forty herons, every fresh arrival is greeted with croaks the most sepulchral, and there is much shaking of branches and flapping of wings before he can find a spot on which he is able to maintain himself in a state of unstable equilibrium.
I watched the tree in question one evening in order to ascertain how many paddy birds roosted in it. I was able to count fifty-four by enumerating the birds as they arrived. I may have missed a few. But this is a mere detail. The lower branches carried all the paddy birds they were capable of bearing with safety. A few of the paddy birds had to be content with berths in a neighbouring tree, which grew out of the water at a distance of a few feet.
Some time after the sun had set one of the overflow party decided to try his luck in the main tree, and this resulted in such croaking and fluttering of wings on the part of his fellow paddy birds that for a few seconds the din of the mynas was drowned.
By the time it is really dark every bird, be he myna or pond heron, is sufficiently satisfied to hold his tongue. From then until an hour before sunrise not a sound emanates from the sleeping population of some 400 mynas and 50 paddy birds, who have elected to spend the night amid the unwholesome vapours that emanate from the water below. Birds are evidently mosquito proof.
Merlins are pigmy falcons. Like falcons, they are reclaimed for hawking purposes, but are regarded as mere toys by those who indulge in “the sport of kings.”
In the days when falconry was a fashionable pastime in England nearly every lady of quality possessed a merlin, which was often as much of a companion as a dog is nowadays. The exquisite little bird of prey would accompany its mistress on her rides or her walks, flying overhead and coming to the glove when called. This species, being the only kind of merlin found in England, is popularly called the merlin (Æsalon regulus), even asCuculus canorusis always known as the cuckoo, as though it were the only cuckoo in the world.
The merlin when trained for falconry is usually flown at the skylark. There are few prettier sights than that presented by a contest between a merlin and a skylark. Both know that the merlin can do nothing until it gets above its quarry; hence the contest at first resolves itself into one for supremacy of position. The adversaries often fly upwards in spirals until they almost disappear from view. Whenonce the merlin does succeed in getting above the lark it makes swoop after swoop until it strikes its quarry.
In India the merlin is often trained to fly at the hoopoe. This contest is of a nature very different from that just described. The hoopoe does not rely on speed. It trusts to its truly marvellous power of timing the onslaught of the merlin and swerving at the critical moment, so that the merlin misses it by a hair’s breadth. So great a master of aerial manœuvre is the hoopoe that two merlins working together are required to accomplish its downfall.
As the plumage ofÆsalon regulushas the nondescript colouring that characterises most birds of prey, no useful purpose will be served by an attempt to describe it. The merlin is a winter visitor to India, and visits only the Punjab and Sind.
There is, however, another species of merlin which is a permanent resident in and distributed throughout India, viz. the red-headed merlin (Æsalon chicquera) or turumti as the bird is popularly called. Like the common merlin it is one of the smaller pirates of the air, being no larger than a myna, but it is the very quintessence of ferocity, and it knows not what fear is. Hence it is a terror to many creatures of greater magnitude than itself. The red-headed merlin is comparatively easy to identify, because it has some distinctive colouring, in the shape of a chestnut-red head and neck. The remainder of the upper plumage is French grey, marked with fine brown cross-bars. There is a broad black band with a whiteedge across the end of the tail. The chin, throat, and under parts are white, with brown spots, which become less plentiful as the individual grows older. This disappearance with age of the markings on the lower parts is very common among birds of prey, and is one of the many problems of animal colouring that do not appear to be explained by the theory of natural selection.
The hen turumti is about fourteen inches in length, of which six consist of tail. The cock, as is usual among raptores, is somewhat smaller than the hen.
The red-headed merlin occurs only in India. It is an evil manufactured for the sole benefit of the small birds of Hindustan. The turumti does not appear to undergo any periodical migration. It preys chiefly upon small birds. Social larks, little ringed plovers and sparrows are its commonest victims. But it is not afraid to tackle larger birds. Frequently it attacks mynas, starlings, quails, and doves. Indeed the usual lure bird for a red-headed merlin is a myna. This is tethered to a stick stuck into the ground, and in front of it is stretched a net attached to upright posts. The first turumti to observe this swoops down at the myna to find itself hopelessly entangled in the net. Hume once saw a red-headed merlin strike a pigeon and kill it with the first blow. Turumtis do not confine their attention to birds. The alert little palm squirrel is often victimised, as are sometimes those bats that are so unwary as to venture forth before the merlins go to bed.
When pursuing their operations in the open turumtisfrequently hunt in couples, and, as they fly exceedingly swiftly, no matter how speedy the quarry be or how adept in swerving in the air, it is rarely able to escape from the concerted attack of a pair of these little furies.
Red-headed merlins are addicted to perching on the telegraph wires that are stretched alongside railway lines. They do this in order to pounce down into the midst of a flock of small birds alarmed by the noise of a passing train. The turumti, like the sparrow hawk, is a sprinter rather than a long-distance flier, and hence is able to secure its quarry in gardens, groves, and other comparatively confined places. It is fond of gliding with great rapidity along some hedgerow or bank and swooping down on any small bird feeding in the vicinity.
The turumti is not often used for purposes of falconry, which is somewhat surprising, seeing that it affords better sport than does the shikra, because it does not give up the chase so readily. When trained it is usually flown at the blue jay or roller (Coracias indica). “In pursuit of this quarry,” writes Jerdon, “the falcon follows most closely and perseveringly, but is often baulked by the extraordinary evolutions of the roller, who now darts off obliquely, then tumbles down perpendicularly, screaming all the time and endeavouring to gain the shelter of the nearest grove or tree. But even here he is not safe; the falcon follows him from branch to branch, and sooner or later the exhausted quarry falls a victim to the ruthless bird of prey.”
Very different is the behaviour of the shikra; he makes a dash at the quarry, and, if he fail to seize it at once, gives up the chase.
The red-headed merlin is thrown from the hand in the same way as the shikra. According to Mr. R. Thompson, the turumti affords peculiar sport with the spotted dove (Turtur suratensis), “striking at the quarry several times, and even often losing it altogether, owing partly to the softness of the dove’s feathers, which give way at the least touch, and partly to its rapid dodging flight.”
Turumtis breed from February to June, earlier in South India than in the Punjab and the Himalayas. The nest is usually built in a fork near the top of a tree—a tamarind or a mango for preference. In size and appearance the nest resembles that of a crow. It consists of a conglomeration of twigs, forming a platform of which the diameter measures about a foot. In the middle is a depression, lined with fine twigs, roots, feathers, or other convenient materials, in which the eggs are placed. Both sexes take part in nest building, which they appear to consider a very difficult and arduous task, judging by the fuss they make over the placing of every twig brought to the nest. The eggs are reddish white, very thickly speckled with brownish red. Turumtis are exceedingly pugnacious at the nesting season, and are as resentful as king-crows at any kind of intrusion; hence they are kept busy in giving chase to crowset hoc genus omne, who seem to take a positive delight in teasing fussy birds with nests.
I leave it to anatomists to determine whether wrynecks are woodpeckers that are turning into other birds, or other birds that are changing into woodpeckers. Certain it is that they are closely allied to woodpeckers.
Only four species of wryneck are known to exist, and, of these, three are confined to the Dark Continent, while the fourth is a great traveller. It is the bird which is frequently seen in India during the winter, and is well known in England as the “cuckoo’s mate,” because it migrates every year to Great Britain at the same time as the cuckoo. Ornithologists call this birdIynx torquilla, plain Englishmen usually term it the wryneck, as though there were only one species in the world. From their insular point of view they are quite right because it is the only wryneck they ever see unless they leave their island. One convenience of living in a country, like England, poor in species, is that to particularise a bird is rarely necessary; it is sufficient to speak of the cuckoo, the swallow, the kingfisher, the heron. On the other hand, we who dwell in this country of many species, if we would not be misunderstood, usually have toparticularise the cuckoo, the kingfisher, or the swallow of which we are speaking. However, as regards wrynecks, India is no better off than England. One species only visits that country; hence Indians may indulge in the luxury of speaking of it as the wryneck. This is a bird not much larger than a sparrow and attired as plainly as the hen of that species. But here the resemblance ends. The wryneck is as retiring in disposition as the sparrow is obtrusive. I defy any one to dwell a week in a locality that boasts of a pair of sparrows without noticing them, but many a man spends the greater part of his life in India without once observing a wryneck. The greyish-brown plumage of the wryneck, delicately mottled and barred all over with a darker shade of brown, harmonises very closely with the trunks of trees or the bare earth on which it spends so much of its time, and thus it often eludes observation.
The wryneck, like its cousins the woodpeckers, feeds almost exclusively on insects which it secures by means of the tongue. This wormlike structure is several inches in length and is hard and sharp, barbed at the tip and covered elsewhere with very sticky saliva. It can be shot out suddenly to transfix the bird’s quarry, and then as rapidly retracted. The tongue is so long that when retracted it coils up inside the head. Although wrynecks feed a good deal on trees, they are far less addicted to them than woodpeckers are. The latter sometimes feed upon the ground, but this is the exception rather than therule, while with the wryneck the reverse holds good. Once, at Lahore, I nearly trod upon a wryneck that was feeding on the ground. It flew from between my boots to a low bush hard by; then it descended to the ground and began to feed in the grass. I crept towards the place where it was feeding, and it did not again take to its wings until I was close up to it. This time it flew to a branch of a tree about ten feet above the level of the ground. I again followed up the wryneck. This time it allowed me to walk right up under it, and study the dark cross-bars on its tail feathers. After a little time it betook itself to a bunker on the golf links, from off which it began to pick insects. Then it flew to a low bush, and from thence dropped to the ground. I again followed it up, and, as I approached, it quietly walked away. Other naturalists have found the wryneck in India equally tame. Mr. Blyth says of it: “Instinctively trusting to the close resemblance of its tints to the situations on which it alights, it will lie close and sometimes even suffer itself to be taken by the hand; on such occasions it will twirl its neck in the most extraordinary manner, rolling the eyes, and erecting the feathers of the crown and throat, occasionally raising its tail and performing the most ludicrous movements; then, taking advantage of the surprise of the spectator, it will suddenly dart off like an arrow.”
At most seasons of the year the wryneck is a remarkably silent bird. I do not remember ever having heard one utter a sound in India. When, however,it first arrives in England it has plenty to say for itself. “In one short season,” says an anonymous writer in England, “we hear its singular monotonous notes at intervals through half the day. This ceases, and we think no more about it, as it continues perfectly mute; not a twit or a chirp escapes to remind us of its sojourn with us, except the maternal note or hush of danger, which is a faint, low, protracted hissing, as the female sits clinging by the side or on the stump of a tree.”
The wryneck is not singular among birds in uttering its note only at certain seasons of the year. Very few of the song birds pour forth their melody all the year round. This fact bears powerful testimony to the view I have frequently enunciated as to the nature of birds’ song. There is nothing conversational in it, nothing in the nature of language; it is merely the expression of superabundant vitality which fills most birds at certain seasons of the year.
Like very many other migrants, the wryneck does not appear to be powerful on the wing. Its flight has been well described as “precipitate and awkward.”
The wryneck derives its name from a curious habit it has of twisting its neck as it seeks for insects on a tree-trunk or mound.
Wrynecks are very rarely seen in cages or aviaries, probably because they are not songsters and because their habits are not such as to render them attractive in an aviary. Nevertheless, wrynecks thrive in captivity. Bishop Stanley records an instance of a wryneck which “lived for a year and a half in acage, and never appeared to show impatience during its confinement; it was observed always to take its food by throwing out its long tongue.”
During the winter the wryneck seems to visit all parts of India, except possibly the Malabar coast, and it is sufficiently common in South India to have a Tamil name—Moda nulingadu.
The wryneck breeds neither in the plains of India nor, I believe, in the Himalayas, but its nest has been recorded in Kashmir. It busies itself with parental duties in the summer—in May and June in England—laying its glossy white eggs in a hollow in a tree. Unlike the woodpecker the wryneck does not hollow out its hole for itself. It is sensible enough not to undertake that which can be equally well done by others. In this respect, as in so many others, it differs from the woodpeckers proper.
Green birds are comparatively few in number, but nearly all of those that do exist are very beautiful objects. Green is a colour which is rarely found alone in birds. The fowls of the air of which the plumage is mainly green almost invariably display patches of other colour. In the familiar green parrots red, pink, blue, and black occur; the green coppersmith flaunts the most gaudy hues of red, crimson, and yellow; the emerald merops adorns itself with gold and turquoise ornaments; while green pigeons are birds which display the whole spectrum of colours, each in a subdued form. In the common Indian species the forehead is greenish yellow; the nape and sides of the head French grey; the chin and neck are old gold shading off into olive; the body is greenish olive; the shoulder is washed with lilac. The primary wing feathers are dark grey, while the secondaries are similarly coloured, but have pale yellow tips. The tail is slate-coloured, becoming greenish yellow at the base. The feathers under the tail are a dark claret colour with creamybars. The lower parts are slate-coloured tinged with green, save for the feathers of the thigh, which are canary yellow. The legs are orange yellow. The eye is blue, with an outer ring of carmine. Yet, notwithstanding all this show of colour, there is nothing gaudy about the green pigeon. Every tint is most delicately laid on, and each hue blends into the surrounding ones in a truly exquisite fashion, so that it is no exaggeration to call the green pigeon a vision of perfect loveliness.
In the unlikely event of any one taking the trouble to compare the above description with those given in the fauna of British India forCrocopus phœnicopterus(the Bengal green pigeon) andC. chlorogaster(the Southern green pigeon), that person will observe that it does not tally exactly with either of them. Nevertheless, my description is taken from a specimen shot by me in the Basti district of the United Provinces. The fact of the matter is that in places where the Bengal form meets the southern species the two interbreed, as, I believe, do all, or nearly all, allied species at the point of junction. And, in such cases, the hybrid birds appear to be perfectly fertile and to thrive equally with the parent species; neither of which would be the case were facts in accordance with the Wallaceian theory. But, as we shall see later, green pigeons seem to lay themselves out to destroy the biological orthodoxy of to-day.
Green pigeons appear to live exclusively on fruit. They go about in small flocks, seeking out trees of which the fruit is ripe; when they hit upon such atree they behave as if they were schoolboys let loose in a tuck shop!
The Hindustani name for the green pigeon isHarrial. The natives, or at any rate some of them, assert that the bird never descends to the ground, because when its foot touches the earth the bird loses a pound in weight, in other words, shrivels up into nothingness! If asked how it drinks, they will reply that it settles on a reed which bends with its weight, so that it is able to partake of the water beneath without touching the earth. In the absence of a conveniently situated reed, the green pigeon overcomes the difficulty by carrying a twig in its feet. It would be interesting to discover the origin of this story, which is on a par with that which asserts that the red-wattled lapwing (Sarcogrammus indicus) sleeps on its back with its legs in the air, in order to be ready to catch the sky on its feet if ever this should fall! As a matter of fact green pigeons are very arboreal in their habits. I do not remember ever having seen one of them on the ground.
The note of the green pigeons is not a coo, but a pleasant whistle. The birds are sometimes caged on account of their song. But they are uninteresting pets. In captivity they soon lose their beauty, because they are so gluttonous as to smear the head and neck with whatever fruit be given them to eat.
Green pigeons are said to be far less obtrusive in their courtship than the majority of their kind. The male does not puff himself out after the manner of other cock pigeons, but is content to bow before hislady love and in this attitude move his expanded tail up and down.
There are few birds that assimilate so closely to their surroundings as green pigeons. Fifty of them may be perched in a pipal tree, and a man on the look-out for them may fail to detect a single individual until one of the birds moves. They are thus excellent examples of protectively coloured birds. Their green livery undoubtedly affords them a certain amount of protection, and so may perhaps be considered a product of natural selection. Be this as it may, a consideration of the details of the colouring of their plumage shows that many of these, as, for example, the lilac on the wing, are quite unnecessary for the concealment of the bird. The eastern and the southern species which occur together in certain places and the hybrids produced by the interbreeding of these are all equally difficult to distinguish from the surrounding leaves, notwithstanding the fact that their plumage differs in details, e.g. the breast and the abdomen are greenish yellow in the southern and ashy-grey in the eastern form, while there is green in the forehead and tail of the latter, but not of the former. Thus we have two species of green pigeon, of which at least one has not originated by natural selection. Facts such as these, however, do not prevent Dr. Wallace, Sir E. Ray Lankester, and Professor Poulton continually proclaiming from the housetops that every existing species owes its origin to natural selection and nothing but natural selection!
There are several genera of green pigeons, and all ofthem are characterised by short legs and broad toes. These are adaptations to the arboreal habit, in the formation of which natural selection has, in all probability, played an important part. The habits of all the genera are identical. They, one and all, build the rough-and-ready shakedowns which do duty for nests amongst theColumbidæ. All lay the inevitable two white eggs. Yet the sexes of the genusCrocopusare alike in external appearance, while those of the generaOsmosteros,Sphenocercus, andTreronexhibit considerable dimorphism. Again in the genusButreronthe sexual differences displayed are inconsiderable. These facts, of themselves, are quite sufficient to disprove the theory that sexual dimorphism in birds is due to the hen’s greater need of protection. Cock green pigeons assimilate so well to their leafy environment that there cannot possibly be any necessity for their wives to be differently dressed. Further, it is worthy of note that the most flourishing of the genera of green pigeons is that in which the sexes dress alike.
In May, 1911, a pair of red-whiskered bulbuls (Otocompsa emeria) took up their residence in my verandah at Fyzabad, that is to say, they spent the greater part of the day there in constructing a nest in a croton plant. The nest of the bulbul is a shallow cup, formed of bast, roots, twigs, and grass, loosely worked together. Sometimes dead leaves, pieces of rag and other oddments are woven into the fabric of the nest. The pair of bulbuls of which I write did not, however, indulge in any of these luxuries; they were content with a rudely constructed nursery. When the nest was nearly complete the owners deserted it. Why they acted thus I have not been able to discover.
The bulbuls absented themselves for a few days. When they returned they frequented another portion of the verandah, and their fussiness betrayed the fact that they were working at another nest. Several days passed before I found time to look for their nest, and I then discovered it in an aralia plant growing in the verandah, in a large pot placed at the right-hand side of one of the doors leading into my office room. The site chosen was the more remarkable in that it was within ten feetof the carpet on which thechaprassissit when not engaged in active work. This nest was of even rougher design than the first one, and was equally devoid of decoration. So carelessly had it been constructed that, to use a nautical expression, it had a distinct list. I found in the nest three pinkish eggs, mottled and blotched with purplish red. They had been laid some time before I first saw them. This was demonstrated by the reluctance of the hen to leave the nest when I approached. Among birds the parental instinct increases as incubation proceeds. On one occasion the bird sitting on the nest in question allowed me to stroke its tail. This organ projects upwards like a semaphore, the nest not being sufficiently large to accommodate it.
It was not until the 15th July that I had leisure to watch these bulbuls closely. Up to that time I had merely noticed that both birds incubate, and that both sexes, and not the cock alone, as some writers assert, have the red “whiskers,” or feathers, on the cheeks.
The weather being warm, it was not necessary for the birds to sit continuously, and the eggs were frequently left for ten minutes or longer at a time. On the morning of the 15th July, I found that two of the young birds had hatched out. Both parents were feeding them.
Birds are creatures of habit. Each parent bulbul had its own way of approaching the nest and of perching when tending the nestlings, so that, although I was not able to say for certain which of the pairwas the cock and which the hen, I could distinguish one individual from the other. For brevity I will call them A and B, respectively.
Both birds, before flying to the nest, used to alight on the stem of a palm standing in the verandah. From this point their manœuvres differed. Individual A invariably flew to a stout vertical branch of the aralia, remained there for a second or two, flitted to a second vertical branch, and from thence hopped on to the edge of the nest, so that its face when there pointed to the east. This individual always showed itself the bolder spirit of the two. The other bird, B, used to fly from the palm to a slender leafy branch of the aralia, and thus cause considerable commotion among the leaves; from thence it jumped on to the edge of the nest, where it perched with its face pointing to the north. Themodus operandiof A was the superior. The verandah faces the east, so that when A wished to leave the nest, it had but to jump across it into the space beyond, and then wing its way ahead, while B had to turn round before it could fly off. The neatness and address with which A used to leap across the nest into the air baffles description.
The 16th July fell on a Sunday. I therefore determined to devote some hours to studying the ways of those bulbuls at the nest. Every naturalist has his own method of prying into the ways of the fowls of the air or the beasts of the field. Some expose themselves to the Indian sun at midday in May, others will squat for hours in feverish swamps. People who do these things are worthy of all praise. I prefer less heroicmethods. Accordingly, I had the pot containing the nest-bearing plant moved a distance of rather less than a yard, so that it stood in the middle of the door-way. I then had an easy chair placed in the office room at a distance of some four feet from the nest. Finally, I removed such of the leaves as tended to obstruct my view. Thus, I was able to watch the bulbuls through thechikin comfort, reclining in the easy chair.
Both parent birds were present when the plant was being moved. They looked rather alarmed, but raised no outcry. They did not seem eager to approach the nest after the position of the aralia had been changed. Evidently they did not understand the meaning of what they had seen. Eventually bulbul A summoned sufficient courage to visit the nest, and must have been highly gratified to find the two youngsters and the egg safe. While perching on the nest it kept its eye on me, having espied me, notwithstanding the fact that there was achikbetween me and it. While eyeing me it cocked its head on one side and half opened its bill. The opening of the bill is an expression of anger. The bulbul’s crest was also folded back, but this does not necessarily denote anger. The crest invariably assumes this attitude when the bulbul is incubating, or brooding, or feeding its young. It was some time before bulbul B could bring itself to visit the nest. It made at least six abortive attempts before it reached the edge of the nest, and then perched only for a second before flying off with every sign of trepidation. And for the whole of that day it showed itself nervous, whereas A sooncame quite boldly to the nest. The difference in temperament between the two birds was most marked.
The parent birds did not come to the nest with the bill very full. They were usually content to bring one succulent grub or insect at a time.
In the earliest stages of their existence bulbul nestlings are so small that one caterpillar satisfies their hunger completely for some little time. So that it often happened that one of the parents arrived with food for which neither of the young birds was ready. Under such circumstances, the parent, after trying to force the food into the mouth of each nestling, remained on the rim of the nest waiting patiently until one of the youngsters lifted up its head for food. The baby bulbuls did not display at this early stage of their existence that eagerness for food, amounting almost to greediness, that characterises nestlings when they grow a little older.
On arrival with food the adult bird invariably uttered a couple of tinkling notes as if to inform its offspring that it had brought food. No sound emanated from the young birds during the first two or three days of their existence. When it had disposed of the food it had brought, the parent bird usually looked after the sanitation of the nest by picking up and eating the excreta. The parent birds did not appear ever to bring water to the nestlings. The succulent food probably supplies the requisite moisture. About midday on the 16th July the third young bird hatched out. The egg was intact at 10 a.m., but by a few minutes after midday the youngster hademerged, and half the shell was still in the nest. Thus the latest arrival made his appearance at least twenty-eight hours after either of his brethren.
I watched carefully in order to ascertain how the parent birds got rid of the egg-shell. Presently bulbul A came to the nest with food. When it had disposed of this, it began pecking in the nest, and appeared to be eating up the shell, but in reality it was cleaning the nest. After being thus engaged for a couple of minutes it flew off, carrying the half egg-shell in its beak. It flew to a distance with this, so that I did not see what became of it. This explains why broken egg-shells are seldom found lying on the ground below a nest. On the following day I placed a small piece of paper in the nest. This was carried off by the first parent bird to visit the nest, but not before the bird had fed its young. Shortly afterwards I placed a sheet of thick paper over the top of the nest so as to completely cover it. This nonplussed both parents. They made no attempt to insert their heads underneath it, but hopped about near the nest looking very disconsolate. I therefore removed the obstruction.
Young bulbuls when first hatched out are almost lost in the nest, taking up very little more room than the eggs that contained them; but they grow at an astonishing rate. By the time the oldest was six days old the three young birds almost filled the nest. From the fourth day the heads of the nestlings went up, and the mandibles vibrated rapidly whenever a parent approached; previously the young birdsdid not seem to hear the approach of the old birds. On the sixth day of their existence the youngsters first began to call for food, and for a time the sounds they emitted were very feeble. On the sixth day their eyes began to open, the opening at first being a tiny slit.
The parents were not always judicious in selecting food for their babes. I saw a bulbul bring a large insect with gauzy wings to a six-day-old nestling. The bird succeeded in ramming about one-third of it into the gaping mouth of the young one. The latter then made frantic efforts to swallow its prize. After struggling for the greater part of a minute it rested for a few seconds with half an inch of insect projecting from its bill. When at last it did succeed in swallowing it, the young bulbul fell back with neck stretched out and appeared to be in a thoroughly exhausted condition.
A triple tragedy has now to be related. Tragedies, alas! are very common among the bulbul community. On several occasions have I watched the nesting operations of these birds, but never yet have I seen a single young one reach maturity. When the eldest of the nestlings was seven days old I noticed that the list on the nest had become very marked, and on examining the nursery I found it empty. I then saw two of the young bulbuls lying on the floor of the verandah. The third was nowhere to be seen. Having rectified the position of the nest, I replaced the two nestlings, which the parents continued to feed. They did not seem to notice that one of their babes was missing.